We are giving our 1983 a face lift. New paint job and new decals. We want to put the Hi Lo sticker back on, but don't know where to find one. Can anyone help?

Do an internet search for decals. I've read on another forum that you are to take a picture. A body shop can use the picture to create a new one.

Are you doing the paint yourself? I'd love to see the process as i'll be going though the same.

As for recreating the decals, any local sign shop that does vehicle lettering should be able to do this for you. If you take a good high-res image of the original decal that is straight on they should also be able to digitize the logo.

If you have a hard time finding a sign shop that can do this for you, you could buy the vinyl raw material and very carefully cut it out using a craft knife.

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1986 Bon Voyage 27F
Jeep Commander 4.7L V8

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I just purchased some from j&r repair. the only difference is the long stripes are one color off, but if i didn't tell you, you probably wouldn't notice

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robobd
1988 22l
1999 ford f250 7.3 diesel

p.s. rob at j&r also has a graphics company and can also personalize anything you would also want for graphics such as name of your camper, owners names, a big smiley face, etc. just some ideas

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robobd
1988 22l
1999 ford f250 7.3 diesel

Thanks for all the information. We did find a place by us that will make the decals. We also decided to go for a different graphic. Hope it looks good.

Is your trailer aluminum or fiberglass? I've been working on the inside of mine but looking down the road I'll probably need to repaint the aluminum. I'm not really sure how to do prep work on thin aluminum without destroying it!

ArkTinkerer

Let me start off saying I am not an expert on painting. We do have an aluminum skinned trailer and it is a little finicky for body prep. If the surface we were painting was decent we just scuffed it up with 220 grit sand paper. We did have some small defects and holes in one part of the camper. With those we scuffed the area with 80 grit sand paper and layed a small skim of plastic bondo over it. You can run into troubles with the defects coming back through if you sand too much. So my advice would be let good enough be, it doesn't have to be perfectly straight anything is better than a hole. Also when we finished we bought graphics to go through the repaired area to break up the area and take your eye away from it. Good luck!

Would you sand the old textured aluminum? I would think wire brush instead?

I may be going at this wrong. Maybe just paint the top and use some sort of polish on the sides to polish off the faded brown? Again, buffing the polish out of the texture will make this job much harder than it would be otherwise....

ArkTinkerer

I have been a aircraft mechanic for years and have stripped quite a few light aircraft for painting. If you are going to strip the old paint off use a liquid stripper never sand it. Never use a steel or brass brush or steel wool on aluminum. Micro particles of the steel can break off and get embedded in the aluminum and set up dissembler metal corrosion and you will have a hole in time. Never mark aluminum with a lead pencil and leave the mark as the same can happen. We would strip the aluminum then wash the stripper and old paint off then wipe the entire skin down with methyl ethyl ketone (MEK). If a area needed extra scrubbing we did that with a non metallic scotch brite type pad with the stripper or MEK. The skin is then ready to paint.If you are going to paint over the old paint, which I think most would, remove all old silicone type sealants then wipe down the entire area to be painted with MEK to remove old wax. The MEK works much better than paint thinner. Buff the old paint lightly with aluminum sand paper or silica paper so the new paint sticks better. Some of the best paints I have used is Dupont Imron and Alumigrip. Many auto paint stores carry these. They are not cheap but most of the expense and time go into preparing the surface so use the best paint if you can afford it, and you plan to keep the HI-LO for years. If you decide to do this yourself follow the paint manufactures recommendation for prep as there are many different paint systems available. I never did the painting myself as we wanted the A/C to look great, not like a jackleg did it. I have painted my kids cars before but they paid me nothing so couldn't complain. Hope some of this helps.

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Jim L & Faye
2805C
2003 Silvarado diesel crew cab
central Virginia